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Google Transit opens, officially

For the last year or so, Google has been offering a public transportation information service called Google Transit. As we've said before, this is a slick idea that will not only help you plan your trip by bus or rail (in select areas), but will also give you a bit of a cost comparison between riding and driving. Now, you no longer need to go to Google Transit for this information, as it's been officially opened and is nicely integrated with the more popular Google Maps. That's not all that's different: the cost information has unfortunately disappeared from the information display. Guess they didn't like my idea.

There's a list of areas which have their public transportation system information in the Google system after the jump.

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Anonymous

7 Years Ago

I'm also a little surprised that Washington D.C. doesn't show up. Between MetroRail, MetroBus, MARC (Maryland commuter rail) and VRE (Virginia commuter rail), there are lots of options that Google Transit could address.

Anonymous

7 Years Ago

Fritz: Yes, it can take agencies several months to get their data into the proper format for Google Transit. But it can also take them as little as two weeks. My company has been building a schedule management system for these agencies over the past 5 years. We now export the data into GTFS format for use in Google Transit. All they need to do is contact us and we can help them out.

Anonymous

7 Years Ago

All, it's up to the transit agency to provide the data to Google Transit. Contact the transit agency and encourage them to participate.

Realize also that converting their route data to Google's format takes time. The transit agencies I contacted all told me they're in the process of converting data for Google Transit, but it's something that can take several months.

Anonymous

7 Years Ago

Thanks for including this article. Although, being from CA, like the reader above, I wish I could use the gadget myself. My main public transit mode is also CalTrain. Google folks, are you reading this?